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Review

Sense World Music is a new addition to the growing number of labels dedicated to Indian classical music. Started in 2002 Sense World is based in UK, with a studio in Gujarat. Many of the albums are live concert recordings of the Saptak Music Festival held every year in Ahmedabad, Gujarat every year in winter.

This CD by Rajan and Sajan Misra presents the live recording of a concert held as part of Saptak Music Festival, 2002. Two of the most prominent vocalists of today, Rajan and Sajan Misra, represent Benaras Gharana. They are probably the most famous khayal vocal duo of our time.

The CD starts with a rare late evening raaga, Saraswathi. It is a audava-shadava raaga, has aarohana of SRGM-PDnS'DP-S' and avarohana of S'nDP-MGRS, adding rishab in the avarohana. Appropriately the this is a bhakthi rasa pradhana raaga. After a short alaap, Misra brothers star with a slow bandish set to Vilambith Ek Taal, par karo more naam. The treatment of the raaga and its evolution here is excellent. They combine so well, complementing and supporting each other so well, no wonder the liner notes declare that they are the most successful vocalist duo of the last twenty years. Sometimes they are even alternating individual notes ! After about 33 minutes, the second composition, kartar sab jagat ko, starts. We get to hear medium tempo taans here. The last bandish in this raag, ma saraswati bhagavathi, set to dhruth teen taal starts after about 41 minutes. This has some fast taans, still the stress is on singing the composition.

The second track is a bhajan in raag Shivaranjani, a popular Carnatic raaga (S R2 G2 P D2 S), that has been adpted well to Hindustani music. Shivaranjani is a audava-audava raaga, with the scale S-R-m-P-d. After a short alaap, the bhajan, radhe tumhare nain mein shyam basae, set to rupak taal starts. The bhajan is sung slowly in the lilting melody. Improvisations are mainly in different ways the first line of the bhajan is sung. Nandan Mehta on the tabla supports the vocalists sensitively, tenderly playing rupak taal. The second bhajan in this raaga, manamohana karo shyam, set to dhruth teen taal starts after 20 minutes. This is a lively bhajan, as one would expect with lot of fast taans.

Overall 4.0 stars for the music and 4.0 stars for the recording. Recommended.

CD Information

Tracks

Nu.	Title	Taal	Lyrics	Time	Music
1	Raag Saraswathi	EkTaal TeenTaal	par karo more naam kartar sab jagat ko ma saraswathi bhagavathi	45:26
2	Bhajan - Shivaranjani	RupakTaal TeenTaal	radhe tumhare nain mein shyam basae manamohana karo shyam	29:07

Liner Notes

Good liner notes with profile of the artists and description of the music.